


Epiphyte (don't be a stranger)

by gloss



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Childhood, Finn is a complete human being, Gen, Grief, M/M, Oblique references to child abuse, Parent Death, Poe has two dads, Space Yiddish, The Force Tree, Time Travel, force shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 18:35:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7725298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Maybe, Finn thinks, maybe <em>that's</em> why he's here. Maybe he's supposed to help Poe. Maybe they're going to keep saving each other, again and again, down through time.</p>
</blockquote> <br/>While in his Force coma, Finn visits Poe's childhood. It's a playdate, it's a heroic mission, it's a lot of things.<p>No sexual content but present-tense Finn/Poe is assumed and structures the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epiphyte (don't be a stranger)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sixappleseeds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixappleseeds/gifts), [galacticproportions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galacticproportions/gifts).



> thanks immensely to G. and @aphrodite_mine for betas and feedback.
> 
> For two of my favourite writers who together have taught me so much about Finn.

As Finn sleeps, the Force swaddles him. Its tendons and veins run bright and fast, tangle around him, buoy him up.

At times, he bobs closer to the surface. Then, he feels some touches, Rey's kiss, the prick of another test by a droid. He can hear voices then, strangers who must be med-techs and droids, but also the peculiar interrogative beeps from BB-8, even hoarse questions from Poe Dameron.

Other times, he has sunk all the way down to the depths of the Force. It is dark down here, and calm. Quiet, save for the rush and thrum of life that matches his own pulse.

Sometimes, infrequently and unbidden, he surges upward and breaks the surface of the current. 

-

The Force races upward, bringing him with it. It twists and splits, becomes water and light that fill and pump through root, branch, heart.

This time, as he blinks awake, the Force's pulse shrinks down to the sound of a river's splash and burble. He lies on a bank that looks ordinary enough. Clear water runs, glinting, over brown and gray rocks, the opposite bank just two or three steps away. Both banks are covered with soft, shaggy grass, brilliant green blades the length of his arm. 

He's wet to his knees.

Above him, the tree streams high and solid, an immense growth as ancient as the light it drinks up. Below him, too, it splits and ramifies into the soil. 

"Are you awake yet?" someone with a high, squeaky voice asks, then jabs Finn in the side with a stick.

"Hey!" Finn sits up and takes a closer look at himself. His knees are knobby, his legs alarmingly skinny, his feet bare. He wears just a loose singlet and someone's baggy trousers, chopped off into shorts and wrenched tight at his waist with a belt. When he holds them up, his arms are skinny, too. The stick prods him again. "I'm awake! I'm moving, aren't I?"

He gets poked again, then again, as the person laughs. Finn lunges at the stick and manages to grab it. Pulling hard, he hauls a laughing child out of the dense green underbrush.

"I thought you were _dead_ ," the kid says, rolling over, then pushing himself up to a squat. Dark curly hair crowds his eyes; his wide grin is white in his darkly tanned face. He's dressed almost exactly like Finn, down to the cut-down trousers. 

"I'm not dead," Finn says. He rubs his eyes, but nothing changes: the light is still bright and golden, he's still next to a river, there's still a skinny nut-brown kid in front of him, that huge tree still whispers in the wind above him. "I'm Finn."

"My name's Poe." The kid punches his shoulder. "Do you want play?"

Finn takes a breath, then another. The child does look a lot like Poe Dameron might, if he were eight or ten years old. His nose is pretty big, his eyes huge under thick brows. 

"If I say no, are you going to poke me with that stick again?"

Poe cocks his head, eyes darting from the stick to Finn and back again. "Probably." He bounces a little on the balls of his feet. "We should play Jedi and lightsabers! There's another good stick back there, so you can have this one, and --"

"Not lightsabers," Finn says, as the memory of pain slices across his back. He flexes his hand, recalling the weight of Rey's saber. "How about, um. Cutlasses?"

Poe scowls and jabs Finn in the leg with his stick. "Lightsabers."

"Blasters, maybe?" Finn asks, then regrets it. That would be even worse.

Poe squints at him and says, carefully, as if Finn might have a hearing or cognition issue, "Light. Sabers."

"Okay, fine." Finn pushes himself to his feet and accepts the stick from Poe. "Lightsabers it is."

"Wingo!" Poe dashes around the tree, evidently trusting Finn to follow.

It's hot here, a relief after the frigid agony on Starkiller. Nothing like Jakku, thankfully; the heat here is close, and moist, like a 'fresher after an entire squad has washed and departed. Even the ground feels soft, with a slight give under his step. Everywhere he looks, a new shifting mass of greens, in fronds and leaves, vines and mosses, fills his vision. The trees grow together, entwined, then split apart until their foliage meets up in the canopy.

Everything's in motion, including this kid. He darts and leaps, quick as any of the enormous, glittering insects in the air, shouting and whooping when he finds the other stick. He brandishes it, whirling around, lunging at Finn. 

They're fairly well-matched, which Finn should find embarrassing. He couldn't take on Kylo Ren, but an eight year old makes a decent opponent. Then again, Finn seems to be about eight himself, so maybe he should go easy on himself.

Finn is _much_ better at making the lightsaber's characteristic whomp-whoosh noise. Poe readily admits this advantage. Stormtroopers, even when they were this young, would never dream of praising someone else. "It's perfect! How do you _do_ that?"

"Just, like --" Finn purses his mouth and breathes deep. "Whommmmm-soosh, whommmmp."

"WIMMMMMMP-WHOOSH!" Poe slices the stick through the air and Finn blocks it once, twice, then pushes forward until they're dancing back and forth, clacking together the sticks and making increasingly more ridiculous and less realistic sound effects.

"That was so awesome," Poe says later, leaning against a sapling, wiping his face off with the hem of his shirt. "You're like Jedi-good."

Rolling his eyes, Finn kicks at a root just off the path. "No way."

"Totally way," Poe says. He straightens up and shakes the hair out of his eyes. When he presses his lips together, they go pale. "I'm going to ask you a very important question."

"Okay."

"But you have to be honest, okay?"

"Sure," Finn says. He moves a little closer, because this seems serious. "What's up?"

"Have you ever caught a twig jumper?"

Finn tries to remember what kind of animal that is. He's fairly sure it _is_ an animal, but now that he's thinking about it, maybe he's getting it confused with a Republic civic-class light transport craft. He settles for saying, truthfully, "No. You?"

"Yes!" Poe meets his gaze and puffs out his chest, but then, just as quickly, deflates a little. "Well. See. I've gotten _close_. Really close! But with two people, I bet we could do it. Probably."

"Let's try, then," Finn says. 

"Yeah? Okay --" Grinning, Poe dashes past Finn, slapping his arm as he passes. "This way, fast as you can!"

Finn has very little experience with little kids. He remembers being one, of course, but that's not the same. Memory has a way of layering over itself, replacing thoughts and feelings of the past moment with assumptions and preoccupations from the present. Besides, he is more sure with each passing moment that stormtrooper kids are not like others. They're definitely a lot calmer than Poe is proving to be. Than Finn himself feels like now, actually; he was never this quick, never this _loud_ as he is following Poe, yelling, thwapping his stick into the brush just because it sounds cool.

He doesn't remember ever simply _running_ like they are, flat out, just to see how fast they can go. They are not racing each other so much as rushing side by side down the path, around the big tree, then doubling back to the river. As stormtroopers, they trained, always trained; they ran endless laps around destroyers and bases, but everyone at the same pace, no one taking the lead, no one daring to lag behind.

Finn's breathless with joy, tipping forward, falling out of gravity, as they splash into the river.

"Ssssh!" Poe hisses, but he's laughing, too, grabbing Finn's hand to lead him upstream.

Twig jumpers are medium-sized amphibians, a little bigger than one of his hands, but as skinny as their name implies. Their skin is cool and strange to the touch, smooth and flexible and brilliantly patched with blues and greens. Their powerful back legs are nearly the same length as their torsos, enabling them to jump very far. 

"That's the problem," Poe says, nodding sagely as one leaps free from Finn's fumbling grip and splashes about five meters downstream. "You can grab for them, no problem. I think they kind of like it. But they always get away." He kicks at the water. " _Always_."

Finn steps a little upstream, slipping on some loose pebbles on the bottom and watches two bright blue twig jumpers making for a swarm of insects. "What if we...? No."

Suddenly, soundlessly, Poe is right next to him, pressed against Finn's side so he can look in the same direction. "What is it?"

Pointing to where the bigger jumper is sunning on a flat rock, its sides widening and narrowing like a bellows, Finn says quietly, "What if one of us grabs it while the other catches? Both grabbing isn't working."

Poe's eyes narrow as he chews his lip, considering it, evaluating angles and the depths of the river. "Maybe."

"Worth a try, right?" Finn asks, pacing off the distance from the sunning rock to Poe, then piloting Poe back a few steps, hands on his shoulders.

"Definitely. Yeah, okay." Poe pushes his wet hand through his hair. "You're really good at grabbing them --"

"Thanks."

"Welcome. You grab, I'll catch?"

Nodding, Finn moves upstream, trying not to splash too much. The first jumper bounds away as soon as he gets close. 

Downstream, Poe waits, knees bent, hands braced on his thighs, gaze intent.

Finn takes a breath, then lets it out nice and slow. The light catches and breaks in a thousand spots over the surface of the water. Paler lozenges of light move like nets over Poe's face. He doesn't want to mess this up. He _can't_.

He does. A couple times. The jumpers are pretty slippery, but the real problem is that it's hard to tell _where_ they're going to jump. There are so many potential vectors, so as hard as he tries, he rarely gets himself pointed in remotely the right direction for Poe to catch.

On the tenth or eleventh try, they almost get it right. Finn stays loose and focused, the jumper leaps right _at_ Poe, and Poe almost catches it. Almost, but one hand skids off the jumper's foreleg. It bounds off his shoulder and disappears.

"I'm sorry, wow, I _suck_ at this --" Finn says as Poe trudges up toward him.

"Are you kidding? You're amazing at this! A natural!" Poe punches his shoulder and turns, heading for the bank. "I'm starving, let's go eat."

"All right?" Finn follows him, scrambling up the steep bank by grabbing tufts of grass and hoping for the best.

Just like that, the twig-jumper project is abandoned.

"Get your stick," Poe tells him matter-of-factly when they pass the big tree. Finn complies, and hands Poe his. "Follow me."

He sets off down another path, wider than the others. Boards and old metal pieces that look like hammered-out fuselage are placed over swampier portions. Poe makes sure to jump, hard, on each piece so Finn follows suit. The boards sigh and sink a little into the mud, but the metal gives up a loud, satisfying clang on impact.

The path meanders uphill, skirting trees, looping past springs, diving through depressions in the undergrowth. Enormous seeds twirl through the air above their heads; worms barely longer than Finn's big toe squish through the mud.

On the way, Poe points out memorable spots - that's where I broke my wrist but over **there** is where I broke my arm. My other arm and  don't step in those plants, they smell like farts \- and tells Finn stories he's made up about the woods.

"The big tree back there, my mom rescued it. It was just a twig and she stole it from the Emperor," he says loftily. "A Jedi helped her."

"Wow," Finn says, glancing over his shoulder. He's no botanist, but the tree looks about a hundred years old. It's definitely around twenty meters tall.

"That bush up there, that used to have berries on it, but they were poison. Also, they tasted gross so no big loss."

Finn nods.

"Crap, we missed the cemetery!" Poe stops suddenly and turns, chewing his lip. "I found a dead bird once when I was little and I buried it. Ever since I try to bury the dead stuff I find."

"Do you find a lot of dead things?"

Poe moves his hands up and down noncommittally, matching the motion with his head. "I'm around here a lot, so." He sucks the inside of his cheek, squinting down the path. "Never mind, that's for babies. Let's go eat."

The path gives out as the forest abruptly ends. They're standing on the edge of an oval clearing. Ahead, on a slight rise, a long one-storey building sits. It looks a lot like the shipping modules that the Empire used for deploying materiel and ammunition.

"That's what it is!" Poe replies when Finn says as much. "Or it was. Now it's just our house."

The side facing them is mostly window, transparent plastic that runs nearly the length of the structure.

Two men embracing are visible through it. They're about the same height and both tanned. One is bald but with a silver beard, while the other is broad and dark-haired. They kiss on the mouth, slowly, tenderly, then tuck their faces against each other's neck and hold on. 

At the sight, Finn's face gets warm and he almost trips over his own toes.

He stops and tugs on Poe's shirt to get him to stop, too. "Aren't we interrupting?" 

"That's just Pop and Dad being _kissy_ ," Poe says disdainfully, leaning away while Finn still holds his shirt. "Come on, let's go, I'm _starving_."

"Those are your parents?"

"Yeah," Poe says, ripping free. "Two of them."

"How many parents do you have?"

Poe stops short, screwing up his face as if it takes effort to count. "Pop and Dad are husbands and my mom is Dad's wife but not Pop's. But they get along really well, nothing bad or anything, not like other people's. Mom had a wife, too, back when I was little but not any more and she wasn't my dad's wife _or_ my pop's. I miss her, though. Pop had another husband way before I was born, before he even met my dad, but he still counts. So. Three now? More other times. Why? How many do you have?"

"None." 

Poe grins at that. "That sounds _great_."

Finn follows him up the path. The house doesn't have a door; it's just a box open on one side. The entrance can be covered by a panel that moves on horizontal tracks. Poe stomps through a messy space full of coats and gardening implements and muddy boots, then into a neater living space of low couches and a battered-looking holo-projector. 

As he goes, he calls out, "I'm starving! Feed me! Stop being gross and kissy and give me food! FEED MEEEEEEEE."

"Hey, squirt," the older man with silver beard says, straightening up, a fabric bag in one hand. "How're you doing?"

Poe hugs him around the leg. "I'm starving! About to pass out probably."

"Food's in the kitchen, your dad's on mess duty today."

"Ugh, _why_?"

He pushes his hand through Poe's hair and shakes him gently. "Be nice. He's getting better."

"Slowly. He's getting better _slowly_. And we're his test subjects." Poe sticks out his tongue, then leans back. "This is Finn, he's eating, too. Hopefully Dad's cooking won't kill him."

The man looks Finn over, almost appraisingly. Now, Finn thinks, the illusion will break. Something about the man's gaze is more than strong enough to do that. Then he grins, his eyes crinkling up. "Hi, Finn. I'm Rex."

"Sir." Finn has to stop himself from saluting.

Rex disengages from Poe, who seems to be trying to climb him like a tree, but not before shaking him in another hug. "I'm heading into town, but I'll see you tonight. You stay close, okay?" Poe's already taken off, so Rex nods at Finn. "Better follow him or there won't be any left."

It's not hard to find where Poe went; the house has few interior walls. The spaces are set off by curtains of dried grasses and crystalline chips. Poe's voice is high and loud, so Finn follows that all the way to the back. The big kitchen overlooks another small clearing in the forest. 

Poe's already straddling a stool at the counter, talking animatedly to the younger man from the window.

"Hi, there," the man says when he sees Finn hesitating where the soft carpeting gives way to hard tiles. "Who's this?"

"That's Finn!" Poe says. "I _told_ you." 

"Come on in, Finn. There's plenty."

Next to the man, there's a large sink with an old-fashioned faucet so Finn washes his hands first - with soap that smells like flowers and actual running water - before he climbs up onto the stool next to Poe.

"We've got spicy bean mash, some stewed meat - you vegetarian, Finn?"

"No, sir," Finn says, accepting an empty oval plate, scratched-up metal like they used to get their rations on.

The man winks at him. "Call me Kes, 'sir' was --"

"-- his CO!" Poe finishes with a shout. He elbows Finn. "Take the fruit salad and some bread, I think Pop made those."

Gasping, Kes takes a step backward, bringing the ladle up to his face as if to ward off blows. "You wound me, child. I'm getting better." He turns to Finn. "It really is edible, I promise."

Finn seems to remember, vaguely, crèche fables about visiting magic realms. If you eat any food in one, you're stuck there forever.

"Meat, please," Finn says. He glances at Poe's nearly empty plate. "And some beans?"

"Right-o." Kes serves him generous portions, then, without asking, heaps more beans and fruit on Poe's plate. "Eat up, squirt."

Poe opens his mouth to show off his half-chewed food. 

Kes says, low and warning, " _Poe_."

Poe claps his mouth shut and mutters something, kicking both feet against his stool. He's grinning, however.

"This is delicious," Finn puts in, only to hear Poe snort. "What? It is." He's telling the truth, he really is; the meat is soft and falls apart on his tongue, giving up spicy little bursts from seeds in the sauce, while the beans are sweet and pasty.

"Sure, whatever," Poe says, still shoveling food into his mouth using a piece of bread as the implement. Finn wonders how he eats when he _likes_ the food in front of him.

He likes listening to Kes and Poe talk. At first it's a lot like sitting in the midst of one of those smuggled holo-comedies set in the Inner Core with a harried male parent, his longsuffering family members, and his wacky droid coworker. The longer Finn listens, however, the more real it seems. This is how people, a lot of people, live, in peace and love, teasing each other and laughing a lot. He wraps his legs around the stool and leans in, stomach full, to absorb it all.

As soon as he's finished eating, Poe jumps off his stool and rushes for the exit, calling over his shoulder, "Thanks Dad see you later come on Finn let's go --"

"Not so fast, boychik." Kes grabs Poe's arm and hauls him backward into a hug. He has to bend nearly double, both arms around Poe's skinny torso, to say, more quietly, "How're you doing? You doing okay?"

Poe twists this way and that but can't escape. " _Dad_." 

Kes pulls him up to his toes and says again, "You doing okay?"

"Yes, _Father_. Now lemme _go_."

"Never." Kes lifts him up, laughing when Poe kicks out his legs in the air. When he catches Finn's eye, Kes winks and says, "Kids, am I right?"

Before Finn can think of a reply - can Kes _see_ who he really is? - Poe beats one fist on Kes's chest. His legs are still working fruitlessly in midair. "Don't talk about me like I'm not here! He's a kid, too! Lemme _down_."

"But he's a _nice_ kid," Kes says. "Not like some."

"I'm a good kid," Poe says stoutly, frowning as he tips his head back to try to see Kes's face. "I'll show you."

Kes kisses Poe's cheek and blows a big raspberry before setting him down. "I know you are, buddy. You're the best. Just teasing."

Poe rolls his eyes. " _So_ funny, wow, I forgot to laugh."

"Fine." Kes swats him lightly on the back of the head. "You'll appreciate my excellent wit and fine sense of humor someday."

"Doubt it!"

Kes steps back, but not before messing up Poe's hair. "Go have fun with your friend."

"That's what I was _trying_ to do," Poe says, "but some old guy got in the way."

"A thousand apologies, youngling." Kes turns to Finn and holds out his hand. "Good to meet you, Finn. Don't be a stranger, all right?"

Finn wipes his sweaty palm on his shorts and shakes Kes's hand. It's so big that Finn's wrist looks like a twig coming out of it, but Kes's palm is soft and dry. He smiles down at Finn - Poe's smile, but in a minor key, a little softened - and Finn swallows hard. "I'll try."

-

Back at the edge of the woods, they pick up their sticks and bat and sweep them around as they walk toward the river.

"Are you sick or something?" Finn asks.

Poe twirls around, his stick drawing curlicues in the air. "No, why?"

"Everyone keeps asking if you're okay." Finn raises his stick, warding off a jab that doesn't come, then converts it into a good smack on Poe's upper arm.

"My mom's going to die," Poe says matter-of-factly. He dodges Finn's last lunge and spreads his arms. "Pretty soon, too." He adds, in a voice clipped and passionless like a med-droid's: "Any day now."

"Oh, _no_." Finn drops his stick. "Is she in pain?"

"All the time."

"Oh." Finn shifts from foot to foot. "Are you sad?"

Squinting, Poe shades his eyes from the sun and peers into the woods. "Yeah, but I take care of it."

He turns; Finn picks his stick back up and they keep walking back into the woods until they reach the big tree on the bank, the one that Finn woke up under. The river sighs and sings as it runs past.

Poe jumps up, reaching for the lowest branch on the big tree. He misses, tries again, misses. Grunting with frustration, his face screwed up in concentration, he braces one foot high on the trunk. It looks like, contrary to all logic and laws of physics, that he's trying to launch himself both sideways _and_ upwards. 

It doesn't work. He slides awkwardly back down to the ground. "I do this _all_ the time," he says and kicks at the trunk. "Stupid dumb tree. Jerk." 

It's the first time that Finn's seen Poe - at any age - remotely angry.

"Here, try this." Finn bends over and laces his fingers together. "I can lift you up."

Poe's smile flashes. It's something out of time, always the same: seeing it, Finn can't believe he ever doubted, however briefly, that this was the same person. "Yeah? Awesome!"

Poe doesn't weigh very much at all. Finn lifts him easily high enough so he can grab the branch and pull himself up the rest of the way. He has a scab on the back of one calf that looks ready to fall off.

"Wait, where are you going?" Finn has to step back and bend almost all the way backward to see anything. Even then, all he can make out is Poe's foot disappearing into the foliage.

Poe's face pops back into sight, upside down, hair hanging in an inverted smile."I'll be right back, I just have to do one thing."

Finn waits a while, peering up into the intricate patterns of branch and leaves and looping vines, but he can't see anything beyond shifting shards of bright sky. At one point, an orange bird swoops down, looking like it's heading right for him, only to bank at the last moment and skim across the river's surface. 

Finn crouches in the water, digging his stick into the soft bottom, upending pebbles and insects, stirring the water into funnel shapes. He bends closer to watch the bubbles and dirt swirling furiously and catching up fragments of leaves and twigs. He realizes, too late, that to something living in the river, what he's created is the equivalent of what a typhoon would do to him. 

Sitting down heavily on the bank, he loops his arms around his drawn-up knees and rests his cheek against one arm. He wishes he could have followed Poe up into the tree; a worry, small but persistent, nudges at the edges of Finn's thoughts. Maybe Poe's never going to come back down. 

Finn lies back, propped on his elbows, with his feet in the river.

Maybe his visit is at an end. Maybe he's supposed to fall back asleep now. That's the last thing he wants to do. He kicks at the water to watch the spray catch the light and hang, shining, for half a moment.

Poe drops down, kicking up leaves and calling Finn's name. When he joins Finn on the bank, he seems different. Paler, maybe, with the suggestion of circles under his eyes, tension around his mouth. It's probably just the sunlight coming from a different angle.

"Hey," he says, his voice a little hoarse. He rubs both hands over his face. "What's up?"

Finn looks up into the tree's branches, then back at Poe. "You okay?"

"Ugh, you, too? Everyone needs to stop _asking_ me that." Poe digs his hand into the river, pulling up pebbles, then throws them all at once, hard as he can.

"Sorry," Finn says. 

"I'm _fine_."

"Okay." Finn sits up and stabs his stick into the water.

Poe takes up another fistful of pebbles. He throws them one by one, each further than the last. When his hand is empty, he reaches into the water again, but only to splash it over his face. He lets it run down his neck, sitting back and closing his eyes.

"What were you doing up there?" Finn asks. He's nervous about angering Poe further, but what's the worst that could happen? He's not sure any of this is happening _anyway_.

"It's personal."

Finn nods. He doesn't know if Poe can see him do that, because he's got his arms circled around his knees and his head down. 

He debates with himself whether it's worse to have a mom who then dies or not have one at all. And didn't Poe have another one who left? Losing two like that has to be much worse. Not having one only became hard now that he's coming to see what he never got to have, whereas Poe can't help but know exactly what he's about to lose.

"I'm sorry," Finn says. In his mind, he hears what he should say next: maybe I should get going, but he has nowhere to go. He already stopped running; he can't start again. He clears his throat and asks, "Did you ever meet someone who already knew you?"

Wide-eyed, Poe nods slowly.

Finn mirrors his nod. He starts to say, "I don't know why, but --" at the same time that Poe says, "that's what my friend's like! Exactly!" He stops, then adds, "my other friend, I mean."

"Oh," Finn says.

"Not you," Poe says.

"Right."

"He's really weird," Poe continues. "My friend. But he's going to --"

Finn passes his stick from hand to hand. "He's going to what?"

"Nothing." Poe works one hand through his hair, twisting handfuls of it. He sighs. "Okay, so --" Poe leans in a little. He drops his voice even lower. "Promise not to tell?"

"Of course," Finn says.

"No," Poe says, staring so hard at Finn that Finn has to resist the urge to move away. "You have to _promise_. Swear."

Troopers make oaths on their helmets. Publicly, that is; among themselves, they make the oath on the inside of their wrists. "Okay, here --" Finn grabs Poe's hand and presses his first three fingers against Poe's wrist, right where his pulse jumps. "I promise. I won't tell anyone, ever."

"Whoa," Poe breathes, looking down at Finn's hand on his. "Okay, see --" He looks around, just to be sure, though they've been alone all day. "My friend's going to help my mom. That's what I was taking care of."

"How?" Finn asks. 

Poe glances around again, twisting all the way around, even squinting out over the river. When he looks back at Finn, his eyes are huge but shadowed. "There's a snake that lives up in that tree. Like a dragon-worm? He's going to save my mom."

Finn looks up. It's possible. He's here, isn't he, eight years old again, playing with Poe Dameron. A lot of things are possible, it turns out. Still, he has a thousand doubts already, and they're only multiplying. "How's he going to do that?"

Poe shrugs. "I don't know. Venom, maybe?"

" _Venom!_ " Finn didn't mean to shout that. He lowers his voice and asks, "Venom?" 

"I don't know! That was just an idea!" Poe shakes his head. "What he does, see, is I give him my tears to drink. When he gets enough, he's going to fix her. That way I'm not sad _and_ I'm helping."

"Wait," Finn says. His pulse has gone riot in his skull and up his throat. " _What_?"

Sighing heavily, Poe looks away and his shoulders tilt down. Silhouetted against the water, he's dark and slight, the river bright and broad, ready to swallow him up. "This is why he said not to tell anyone."

"I believe you," Finn says quietly. He can't think, not nearly clearly enough. He gets to his feet; he needs to move, needs to shake thoughts loose. He paces up to the tree, then back down. "I just don't understand. What's he do to _you_?"

Poe draws himself up, his chin sharp against the river. "It doesn't hurt much."

"Okay," Finn says and lets out the rest of the breath in his lungs. "I'm glad to hear it."

Poe looks up at him, his mouth tipping at a weird angle. "Thanks."

When Finn bends down to pick up his stick, Poe flinches. 

Finn freezes. Eventually, he says, slowly as he comes to the understanding, "He scares you."

Poe lifts his shoulders, but it isn't a shrug. It's more like he's trying to sink down into himself. "It's not that bad."

"No, probably not." Finn backs up and sits down on a root, just under the big tree. "I bet it'd scare other people, though."

Poe takes several deep breaths, his torso swelling, then collapsing like a twig jumper's, before he gets to his feet. He hesitates a little, then joins Finn, sinking down next to him. "Probably."

Something about Poe's expression, his downcast eyes, drawn-together brows, the tension pinching his whole face, makes him seem a bad reflection of himself. Dull, dim, and tight where he ought to be sharp and bright and _open_.

This is the face he wore when FN-2187 pulled him out of the interrogation chair. Not resigned so much as strained, desperate and determined to hold himself together.

Maybe, Finn thinks, maybe _that's_ why he's here. Maybe he's supposed to help Poe. Maybe they're going to keep saving each other, again and again.

It makes about as much sense as anything else.

"What if he can't help?" Finn asks. "What if he's lying to you?"

Poe looks at him, blinking rapidly. Finn's a terrible person, he realizes. It hasn't ever occurred to Poe that someone would do that.

"Maybe he's not lying," Finn adds. "Sorry, that came out wrong. It just sounds weird. Whatever he's doing, that doesn't sound like something a friend would do."

Poe's mouth twists. "Yeah? How would you know?"

"I _don't_ know," Finn admits. 

"How many friends do you have, anyway?"

"Two," Finn says. "No, three. If you count, three. I used to have another, but he died."

Now he doubts whether he's telling the truth. He doesn't have the first idea what qualifies someone as a friend. Rey is his friend, but should he count Chewbacca and Solo?

Poe opens his mouth, then looks down at the ground. "He died? What happened?"

"He got stabbed." Finn curls his toes into the dirt. "With a lightsaber."

"Ewwwwww." Poe sounds equal parts disgusted and impressed.

"Yeah." Finn leans over, grasping his ankles. After several breaths, he adds, carefully, "I think sometimes? People just die."

"No," Poe says.

"It's stupid and unfair and it doesn't make any sense," Finn says, "but it just happens."

"That's why I'm going to stop it, _duh_."

Finn can't look at him. "I wish I'd stopped it."

Poe pats his back, heavily, his palm thumping. "I'm sorry."

"I was too far away," Finn says, closing his eyes, listening to the river, letting himself feel the warmth of Poe's hand. Too far from Solo, too far, then not strong enough, for Rey. "I'm never close enough."

"Doubt _that_ ," Poe says and pokes Finn right between the shoulder blades. "But you get it, right? That's why we have to try."

"Yeah," Finn says. He doesn't know what else to say. He thinks this must be grief, what he's feeling about Solo, about all those people on Jakku: Helpless and sad and only partly, provisionally, resigned to what happened. No, never resigned. Accepting, maybe. He's nowhere near accepting that any of it happened, let alone _had_ to. Whatever's happening to Poe up in the tree, he knows like his own pulse he has to stop it. But he wishes he didn't have to. "But your mom. She doesn't want you to get hurt, right?"

Poe grunts and hugs his knees. 

"And your dad and your pop, they don't, either, do they?" Finn straightens up a little. "They wouldn't want that."

"I'm _helping_ them," Poe mutters and peels some bark off the root beside him. He doesn't sound nearly as sure of himself as he did a few moments ago. "I'm _trying_. Trying to help them, all of them. I have to."

"Yeah," Finn says. "I know. Maybe you can't, though. Maybe it's bigger than you. Us."

"I have to try."

Finn doesn't have any other arguments. As he leans against Poe, he remembers for some reason the first time his company participated in a battalion exercise. How the sweat covered him, head to toe, made the soles of his feet squeak inside his boots. It stung every single blister ground up by his new armor. He must have been just around this age. Some of the boys cried in their helmets as they marched; for once, nobody ratted anyone else out.

"You've been trying really hard, huh?" Finn asks softly.

Poe nods. He's looking down the bank and across the river. The ribbon of sky over the water is reflected on the wet surfaces of his eyes.

"Can I see your friend, maybe?"

"No." Poe shakes his head. He's still gazing at the horizon.

"I could probably help a lot, though," Finn says. "Give him a lot of tears, help your mom."

Poe looks at him sidelong for a few moments, then turns his head to look at him straight on. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I've got a lot to be sad about." He owes Poe his life for getting them off the Finalizer. Maybe this is the reckoning of that debt.

Poe frowns, however, and Finn sighs. He must have gone too far with that last argument, pushed too hard.

"Like what?" Poe asks after a bit. "Why would you be sad?"

"I can't find my family," Finn tells him. "I did find some but then I lost them, too."

"Wow." Poe breathes the word into several syllables, his eyes wide. He nods suddenly and elbows Finn hard in the ribs. "Thanks, Finn."

Finn elbows him back; Poe sways melodramatically away, then crashes back into him, so Finn does the same. They sway and crash, sway and crash, giggling a little, for a little while.

Suddenly, though, Finn stops laughing. He thinks he might be about to cry. The space that laughter made in his chest collapses and tightens.

"I do count, you know," Poe says eventually. "As your friend."

"Good," Finn says as sorrow creeps over him. He doesn't want to leave. He knows this is a dream, or a story, something not real, but he doesn't want it to end. "Let's go see this dragon, okay?"

"How are we both going to get up there?"

"I'll take care of it."

Finn hoists Poe up and hands him his stick, then, gripping his own stick between his teeth, tugs down a sturdy-looking vine and pulls himself up, hand over hand, until he reaches the first big branch.

"Nice," Poe says. 

Finn grins as he tucks his stick into the back of his waistband. He can't imagine anyone in the Order ever dreamed that trooper training would come in so handy for climbing trees, but all he has to do is evaluate the space around and above him. Treat it as territory to be entered and managed, and this becomes exactly like solving a tactical puzzle. He pauses, finds the likeliest looking spot higher up, moves to that, then starts again, slotting together his journey upward. He moves slowly, carefully, backtracking when he has to.

Poe, on the other hand, jumps heedlessly for skinny boughs and swings dangerously downward on loose vines.

Finn doesn't forget where they're going, nor why, but all the same, the climb takes on its own purpose and fun. He recovers that calm focus and anticipation that the sorrow had washed away.

Together they've made it more than halfway up the enormous tree when Poe gestures him to stop. They both have sap on their faces, splattered over their arms and legs amidst scrapes and cuts and patches of dried river mud.

"He's over there," Poe whispers, pointing around the trunk. 

Hugging the trunk, Finn inches forward and peeks around.

A knobbly, medium-sized branch juts out, dividing into two about halfway down its length. In the fork, a dark mass roils in place. At first Finn thinks it's an insect nest - there's something about it that gives off a sense of motion. Past the mass, the two junior branches are black and thin, like things pulled from a fire.

Poe presses against Finn's back.

The mass shifts, uncoils, and lifts a little. Now Finn can make out a bone-white face like a humanoid that floats a little above the dark cloud.

"Traitor," it says. The voice carries like a blaster bolt.

"I am not!" Poe yells. He twists his hand in the fabric of Finn's shirt. "He's here to _help_ , I didn't do anything wrong --"

The panic shooting off Poe, the fear that he wouldn't admit to on the ground, confirms Finn's decision.

"He's talking to me," Finn says. He can't feel the heat of the air any longer, or the pull of gravity from the ground below. If it weren't for Poe just behind him, Finn might just float away on the cold fear pulsating out from the voice.

"Weakling traitor," the dragon says. It cocks its head at an angle no humanoid could achieve, nearly perpendicular to its neck. "How did you come to be here? You don't belong here."

"Neither do you."

Its fangs slice the air. "I go where I please."

Finn digs his fingernails into the bark of the tree. He's so nervous that it feels like the tree's warming his whole hand, steadying him. "Not here."

"Out of time," the monster tells him, "out of luck."

How he's here is as much a mystery to Finn as it is to the dragon, but he'll keep that a secret. "I like it here."

"He's my friend!" Poe shouts. The sound of his voice, squeaky and passionate all at once, is as warm as the light falling through the branches and the sap sticking to Finn's legs. "He's allowed!"

"I can offer my tears," Finn says slowly, trying to make each word deliberate and sincere. "Take me. Leave Poe alone. Let him grow up --"

" _Finn_ ," Poe whispers, " _no_ , that's not --"

"Tears?" the dragon says. "Is that what he told you?"

Finn looks at Poe, but Poe's peering at the dragon, face gone tight and mean.

"Take me," Finn says.

"I don't want a traitor. What good are you?"

"What good is he?" Finn shifts his weight on the branch and changes his grip on the bark. 

"He's so pure," the dragon says. "Perfect, innocent. Stupid. There's a power in the light, you know that."

"Leave him _be_."

"You're finished," the dragon tells Finn. 

"You are," Finn says with all the heat he can muster.

The dragon hunches, black body rapidly coiling up, then dashes forward, mouth open, fangs dripping, to strike at Finn.

The stick is in his hands suddenly and Finn brings it down against the white face. Something cracks - he's sure it must be the stick, until he sees it, whole and unharmed in his trembling grip. Black goo wells from the crosswise cut on the dragon's face. It hisses and yelps in pain.

"Did he bite you?" Poe asks.

Finn checks his arms and touches his neck. "I don't think so."

"Good."

"Did he ever bite you?" Finn asks but Poe doesn't answer.

"Stupid traitor," the snake murmurs, pulling back and laughing. It coils and recoils, anxiously, tongue darting and tasting the air. "Weak."

"He got you, didn't he? Not so weak!" Poe has pulled himself up onto a branch just above Finn. Crouching there, he pelts the snake with rocks from his pockets, pieces of bark, some fruit seeds. 

"Snoke," Finn says. That's why he's here, that's who this is. A moment ago, he didn't understand, but now he does. 

He didn't recognize the skull-like face without its crack, nor at such a reduced size. The few times troopers were addressed by Snoke, they were amassed by the thousands and he floated above entire stadiums, hissing down at them. Now, perhaps because it's the past, or a dream, or simply reality, rather than a holo-projection, Snoke is only slightly bigger than these two boys.

His eye sockets look empty, but there's something that glitters, way down at their bottoms. "Traitor. You'll never be a hero, you know."

The black goo coats half of Snoke's face. One of Poe's missiles hits him square in the center of his forehead and Snoke shakes, losing his perch.

"Leave the kid alone," Finn hears himself say. "He's not yours."

"But he _was_ ," Snoke says, forked tongue flickering out. "And he was delicious."

"Shut up!" Poe hurls a nut the size of Finn's fist and knocks Snoke halfway off the spindly black branch. "You shut up!"

"The innocent believe everything. Not like you and me, traitor. We know better." Even as it has to right itself, it's ignoring Poe completely, which, Finn can't help but think, is poor strategy.

"I'm nothing like you," Finn says.

Snoke nods, a parody of kindness and patience. "But you could have been. _Powerful_."

Finn passes his stick from hand to hand. He's listening, but looking, too, for an opening. "Not me. You're lying."

"Am I? Now you're just nothing. A failure dreaming sad, sad stories, too afraid even to die."

Poe lobs a rock from the riverbed, knocking Snoke askew; before that even finishes happening, Finn knows to jump to Snoke's branch, stick in hand, and hit his head again.

"Poor little baby boy just wants his _mama_ ," Snoke says. He has slipped further off and dangles in the air. "Wah-wah, please, mister, make her better?"

Finn reaches for a small branch above his head; it's not strong enough to hold him for very long. He grasps it one-handed and swings hard, bringing his stick down on Snoke again, wrenching it in the wound already there. Rotten things, dead and dying things, fill his nostrils and sting his eyes, but Snoke drops all the way, crashing and bouncing off branch after branch until he hits the ground.

Gasping, Finn fumbles backward to the surer perch. He clings with both hands to the trunk, stick shoved into his waistband.

"Finn," Poe says as he joins him. They peer downward. He sounds hushed. "Finn?"

"Yeah," Finn replies.

Snoke thrashes on the ground, dark and broken, white head flopping around like a fish out of water. As they watch, the body shrinks, sizzling, burning the grass, and eventually winks out. Eventually, the cracked and oozing head follows suit. Where it lay, the ground is blackened.

Finn can't remember how to breathe all the way. His chest is tight as a fist.

The branch he's on dips as Poe draws closer.

"I'm sorry," Finn tells him. "I don't think he was ever going to help your mom."

"'sokay," Poe says. He sounds hoarse; when he sniffs, the sound is wet. But when Finn looks at him, his eyes are bright and wide. "Thanks."

"Any time," Finn tells him. He touches Poe's wrist again and Poe, startled, looks at him.

"We should probably climb down."

Finn tries to smile. "Surprised you don't just jump."

Grinning, Poe grins sways into him, knocking their shoulders together. "That's what I usually do! Watch this!"

He leaps down several more branches, zig-zagging until he comes to a solid-looking one wrapped with vines and nearly shining with brilliant yellow moss.

Poe looks up, squinting. "Are you watching?"

"Yeah," Finn calls. He can't look away.

"Here I go!" Poe crouches down like a twig jumper, hands between his bent legs, then _bounds_ forward. He hangs for a moment, limbs spread, before gravity finds him and pulls him vertical.

The foliage rustles back, closing the hole, obscuring any view of the ground, swallowing Poe. 

Finn rests his forehead against the trunk. Its warmth pulses into him, filling his skull and cascading down his spine. 

The river sings, the wind whispers in the branches. One by one, the branches lift, then wrap around Finn, cradle him close as he return to the depths.

-

He'll wake with Poe's hand on his wrist, a promise and reunion both.

**Author's Note:**

> Some images and a playlist can be found [here](http://spaceoperafeerie.tumblr.com/tagged/slay-the-dragon) on my Tumblr.


End file.
